Boy, did the year 2020 stink! I’m not just talking about Japanese idol activities such as break-ups and graduations either, although these things did happen too. I usually don’t talk about my feelings on world events in this blog, as it doesn’t relate to Japanese idols, but no one can deny that we are in the midst of a global pandemic in which a virus has spread, and, unfortunately, claimed the lives of way too many good people in this world. We are forced to wear face masks when we go out in public and keep our distance from each other. Because of this, public gatherings have been discouraged. This limits what many music groups can do as public appearances and concerts are not a good idea. Thankfully, there are scientists working on various vaccines to hopefully kill or control the virus. One hopes that 2021 will be a much better year than 2020.
2020 didn’t provide many new songs from my favorite groups. There were new groups that debuted in this year although one I liked broke up before the end of the year. I can’t say that I blame anyone for wanting to stay home instead of getting together with their groups and going into the studio to record new songs, or to perform live in a public place with an audience. But I’m grateful for the handful of new songs that I got to hear this year.
2020 started off on a particularly crappy note as on January 1 monogatari’s staff announced that the group was disbanding. Their final live was held on February 16. My favorite member, Aozora Asuka, started a new Twitter account in April which has now been deleted. I am not sure why.
Hiwillow released their debut single, “To The Top”, on March 25, 2020. My favorite song on the single is “cherry”. I linked a fan video of Hiwillow last year, when the group was still a trio, but this year the group’s official YouTube channel has a live video from last December with four members (although the audio is the studio song). Also, here are some official links.
A Little Bit was a group that created their Twitter in early January and their activities started soon afterward. A Little Bit featured former amorecarina Osaka member Yano Yuka, who was the youngest member of the group. I watched some of their official YouTube videos, but I only downloaded one, a live song named “challenger”. The video was uploaded on March 27. This is where I would normally place the link for that video, but unfortunately the group disbanded on September 22. All their YouTube videos are now private or deleted. I did save a group photo, which I’ll share below.
One of my favorite members of Candy Zoo, Katayama Yuara, graduated on January 13, 2020. Four days later a new lineup of Candy Zoo debuted with returning member Sugaya Natsuko. Obviously, this new lineup was formed, and new songs were written for and practiced, at some much earlier point before Yuara’s graduation. All of the older Candy Zoo songs, including the Candy Zoo Nightmare songs, have been discarded in favor of the newer songs. If anyone reading this likes the new lineup and songs, that’s fine, but none of the newer members or songs are favorites of mine.
Last year I linked a video for “vanilla” by Jumping Kiss, thinking it was their first single. Actually, it wasn’t. Oops. “Houkago Lip”, released April 23, 2019, was the group’s first single, and there isn’t a music video for it. Jumping Kiss’s second single, “Koi wa Ameagari ni Makasete”, does have a music video. There are only five members in the current lineup, though. About a month after this video was uploaded to YouTube my favorite member, Suzuki Hiyori, cut her super long hair short. And then by December nearly every member of Jumping Kiss got a haircut. This always seems to happen to my favorite idols.
The seven members of White Rabbits all graduated from the group sometime in June. Then they reemerged as the group Fluffy Star (which is my preferred name since I’m not sure how to spell their Japanese name) in July, signed to a new company. The new White Rabbits are a bunch of preschool girls…which I’m not interested in. Fluffy Star basically perform cover songs, but the video below may be an original song.
Sakura Gakuin started the year by uploading a new video to their YouTube channel titled “Aoharu Hakusho”. And there’s a whopping total of 73 seconds of music in it! It sounds like it’s a great song, but unfortunately this is probably all I’ll ever hear since it’s hard to purchase Sakura Gakuin CDs. There was an announcement on September 1 that they will have one final year and then disband on August 31, 2021! That’s sad news for fans of the group. The final lineup has only eight members, much like the original lineup. (Longtime fans will recall that Mizuno Yui and Kikuchi Moa were transfer students.)
RABBIT HUTCH released three new singles and added two new members in 2020. The new members are Kiyota Anri (green) and Miura Miu (red). My favorite single is titled, appropriately enough, “Daisuki!” The good news is someone at Sister Management finally decided to have the girls do something besides dance in an empty room or in front of a white screen. This time they are dancing in…an empty café. But they are also taking each other’s photos and sitting in a booth.
Devil ANTHEM. surprisingly stayed active during 2020. My favorite song of theirs from this year is “VS”, a rock / EDM hybrid song. I’m glad to see Hashimoto Yume is growing her hair back. By the way, earlier this year I purchased two cheki through the company Chaotic Harmony for their Cheki in the Time of Coronavirus program. Below the video link is a photo of the cheki, Takekoshi Kurumi (left) and Yume (right).
So, yeah, 2020 was that kind of year.
